Suiteheart Of A Deal: Suiteheart Of A Deal / My Place Or Yours?. Wendy Etherington

the years. But that didn’t amount to much. She had treated him like a son, and he’d been happy to help out an old lady with no kids of her own.

      He’d also given her a lot of his hard-earned cash. What a poker player old Lilly had been! He had called her Poker Face Miller and she had nicknamed him Beck and Call.

      What could she possibly have left him? He sure hoped it was the Fairlane.

      “ANGELA, you sweet thing, you’re looking mighty fine today. Mighty fine indeed.”

      Calmer now but still shaky, Rainey groaned and turned halfway around in her chair. The buttery voice behind her was unmistakable. Beck Mahoney, alias Romeo, alias Superstud, alias Mr. Insincerity, had burst into the reception area adjacent to Nate’s office and managed to get all of three steps into the room before finding a woman to charm.

      Through the frosted glass between the two rooms, Rainey saw the blurred image of the flustered, middle-aged receptionist waving a hand in Beck’s direction. “Oh, get away with you, Beck Mahoney!” she admonished him with a girlish giggle. Beck grasped her hand in midair and planted a kiss on the back of it. “Angela, if I were twenty years older…”

      Suddenly a group of boisterous young clerks appeared out of nowhere and began to ooh and ah over a preening Beck. “All hands on Beck!” a girlish voice shrieked, and they gathered around him like a pack of starstruck groupies.

      “Beck, honey,” one cried with petulance, “you said you would call me and you didn’t!”

      “You told me the same thing!” someone else whined.

      “Girls, girls,” Beck drawled. “Patience. There’s plenty of me to go around. Speaking of which, who wants to climb the Galatea Trail and have a picnic at Mirror Lake on Sunday?”

      “I do!” they all cried.

      Gently pulling free from their clutches, he said, “Okay, well, I’ll definitely be taking one of you. I don’t want to hurt anybody’s feelings, so I won’t say who it’s going to be right now. If it’s you, you’ll know soon enough.”

      Groaning good-naturedly, the young women dispersed. Beck burst into Nate’s office. “Nate, old boy,” he bellowed, “I see you’ve still got a license to practise. How can that—” spotting Rainey, he stopped dead in his tracks “—possibly be?” His gorgeous mouth fell open and his face turned beet red.

      Rising to her feet, Rainey managed a tight smile. “Hello, Romeo. How’s the hunt going?”

      “I…” His blush actually deepened another shade. Dripping sarcasm, she quipped, “Ooh, he blushes all the time. I like that in a man.”

      “What are you doing here?” he asked with wide-eyed astonishment. “For that matter, who are you?”

      Nate gestured between them. “Beck Mahoney, meet Rainey Miller. Though it seems you’ve already had the pleasure.”

      The look of total bewilderment on Beck’s scarlet face gradually gave way to a sheepish grin. “Well, I’ll be. Gorgeous Green Eyes is Lilly Miller’s favorite niece. I was right. This is my lucky day.”

      “In more ways than one,” Rainey said dryly. “As it turns out, you’re my new business partner.”

      “Your new what?” His amber eyes darted from Rainey to Nate and back again. He waved a hand in the air. “Okay, you’ve lost me now.”

      Nate motioned for them to sit down and then told a bugeyed Beck what he had just told Rainey—that he was half owner of the Honeymoon Haven, effective immediately. Beck looked like he didn’t know whether to jump for joy or jump out the second-floor window onto busy Banff Avenue.

      Breaking a thick silence, he murmured to himself, “Half the Haven? Man, I would have been thrilled if she’d just left me her car.”

      Nate rifled through the papers on his desk. “I believe she did leave you the Fairlane.”

      Beck’s eyebrows shot up. “Half of it or all of it?”

      Even the humorless lawyer had to laugh at that. “Every inch of it, Beck. I assure you.”

      “Cool!” Shaking his head, Beck turned to Rainey. “But I don’t get it. Weren’t you supposed to inherit the inn? That’s what she told everybody.”

      “Apparently she had second thoughts,” Rainey muttered.

      “No kidding!”

      For the next twenty minutes, Rainey stubbornly ignored Beck’s furtive glances while Nate went over the fine details of the will, coming finally to the section on special instructions.

      “As you know,” he said to Rainey, “your aunt waived a memorial service. She stipulated instead that a party be held to commemorate her life, not her death. The party is to take place at the inn, as soon as you feel ready.”

      Rainey nodded. It was a wonderful idea. Lilly had been a real live wire. Nothing short of a lively send-off would do. Beck nodded, too, and Rainey felt a stab of resentment. How dare he presume to…Ah, wait a minute. He was a full partner here, whether she liked it or not.

      No sooner had that thought knocked her over than Nate threw her another curve. “Rainey,” he began cautiously, “Lilly made one additional request.” He paused and she tensed. Surely there wasn’t more bad news? “She asked that her apartment at the Haven be converted to a wedding chapel. Apparently it was always a dream of hers, but she never got around to it.”

      “That’s right,” Beck said. “She talked about it often.”

      Rainey gasped. “A wedding chapel! But where will I live?”

      “Hey, did I mention that I own a beautiful cottage?” Beck joked.

      Eyes blazing, she turned toward him. “Beck Mahoney, if I hear one more word about that cottage, I’ll scream!”

      He held up both hands. “Gotcha. Not one word. I promise.”

      “One more thing,” Nate added. “She asked that the party be held in the chapel. I’m not sure why. Perhaps it was because she never married.”

      While Beck and Nate discussed the transfer of ownership, Rainey struggled to get her thoughts in order. Her mind was spinning. No, she didn’t want a partner. Yes, she was grateful for a partner. No, she didn’t want Beck Mahoney as a partner. Yes, she…Good grief, what did he know about running an inn? He was a ski bum, for heaven’s sake. A pilot. A masseuse. A playboy!

      With a not-too-discreet glance at his watch, Nate indicated that the meeting was over. Rainey thanked him, grabbed her purse and hurried out. She was halfway to her rental car when Beck caught up to her.

      “Hey, lady, wait just one minute!” He grabbed her arm and spun her around. “Don’t you think we should sit down and talk about this? I know you don’t think much of me, but the fact is that we’re partners now.”

      “I didn’t ask for a partner!”

      “I didn’t ask for one, either!”

      “Yes, but…” Oh, darn. It was true. When you got right down to it, Beck was no more responsible for their predicament than she was. He was stunned, too. Obviously, Lilly hadn’t seen fit to tell him about this.

      And, darn it all, as much as Rainey wanted to hate the guy, she just couldn’t. Underneath that phony charm, there was something faintly likable about him.

      “Look,” she said softly. “I’m in shock, Beck. I need a little time to digest this. I expect you do, too.”

      “You’ve got that right. Listen, why don’t we grab that dinner at the Steak Pit tonight? Talk things over. I don’t know about you, but I’ll be famished by seven o’clock.”

      Rainey bit her lower lip. It was tempting. All she had eaten today was a salad at lunchtime, and she’d mostly picked at it. A juicy steak and a baked